live once you become
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Daigo slips onto the sidelines while the Digimon Detection Agency plays on a board he can't see in the shadows. While the Chosen struggle in their own battle, Daigo searches for the reason he's pushed aside, and all Maki has to tell him is: "Haven't you grown up, yet?"
1. 1-01

**A/N:** Written for

Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak task  
Digimon bingo, the non-flash version, #618 - "I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision." Eleanor Roosevelt  
Mega Prompts Challenge, dialogue prompts #020 - "So this is where it all began."  
What if Challenge, What if Maki and Daigo were original Chosen Children?  
The Drabblechap Competition

* * *

 **live once you become**  
1.01

He's frustrated. He goes on teaching and keeping an eye on the Chosen and the infected continue to appear, but he does nothing more. He barely sees Maki now, and when he does it's only enough time to say that Izumi-kun hasn't been going to school, or Mochizuki-chan attending one day and not the next, or that none of them are really paying attention in class but, really, who can blame them?

But other things are happening. He knows they are. Infected digimon appear and then disappear without him being called. Meicoomon has disappeared and the only reason he knows is because Ishida-kun asked him about it.

And what can he say? He doesn't know.

He really doesn't know.


	2. 1-02

**live once you become  
** 1.02

Maki's in her office, for once, and he lets himself in. She doesn't give him much though. The same as always. Asking how the children are, saying that nothing else has changed and then sending him on his way.

But this time he stands his ground. 'I heard from Ishida-kun that Meicoomon has disappeared,' he says. Maki brushes a few papers off her desk but otherwise doesn't react. Hadn't she even realised she'd left him out of the loop along with the rest of the agency? 'I also heard she's infected.'

'Of course,' she says, almost carelessly. 'She's the origin of the infection.'

She's _what_? And how come no-one told him that?


	3. 1-03

**live once you become**  
1.03

'Why not tell me?' he asks.

'What will you do with the knowledge?' She's still elsewhere, tidying her papers as though she doesn't need to pay more than half a mind to their conversation. If even that.

He can forgive the others for acting all high and mighty, but he and Maki are supposed to be closer than that. 'Meaning?' he snaps at her.

She just shrugs. 'You know, all the information that trickles down from top is distributed in a need to know fashion. Your role is only to keep an eye on the kids.'

'Only?' he repeats. 'I do a hell of a lot more than that, Maki, and you know it.'


	4. 1-04

**live once you become**  
1.04

Maki smiles in a way that says she knows exactly how much he does, and it doesn't hold the candle to her own work. And maybe it doesn't. After all, she's the one who's higher ranked and the one who calls the shots over him and others similarly placed to keep an eye on the Chosen. But it's not through any fault of his own, as far as he can tell.

'You don't need to know,' she repeats. 'Others are handling the rest.'

'The prototype then?' he asks. 'That had nothing to do with the kids?'

She laughs. 'You sound like a child yourself, complaining about why the kid next door gets the new toy and you don't.' That's biting enough and he's ready to retort, but then Maki adds: 'haven't you grown up, yet?' and his jaw snaps shut.


	5. 1-05

**live once you become**  
1.05

Isn't he an adult too?

 _Haven't you grown up, yet?_

Of course he has. He works. He earns the bricks to pave his road in life. In this particular iteration of his job, he teaches children as well and isn't that proof enough?

 _Haven't you grown up, yet?_

Apparently it's not. The tale tumbles away from him and he's left on the sidelines and isn't he one of the main characters? Isn't he her equal –

And yet she's gone ahead of him. So far ahead that he looks at her and barely sees her shape framed in the shadows.


	6. 1-06

**live once you become**  
1.06

She wasn't always far ahead of him. They went to junior high school together – were classmates and fairly good friends too. And then they split off for senior high and met up again in college, and they'd grown up. Or so he thought. She'd grown up a lot and him a little and she made him too cold and he made her too breathless and so they broke it off.

And now, they work together, and somehow she's climbed up the ladder of success faster than him – or her mind's been more on track. He's a teacher first, after all. A teacher but the Digimon Detection Agency is the ones who reach out to him. The ones who wanted him.

And he'd thought Maki had recommended him. Now, he's not so sure.


	7. 1-07

**live once you become**  
1.07

What makes an adult, in the end? The next time he sees Maki, he barely gets a chance to talk to her because Ishida-kun is there as well.

Truthfully though, it winds up being far more insightful that way. Not with what she tells him, because she doesn't tell much of anything, but rather what she doesn't say.

Maybe he can't see it when he's standing in front of her. Maybe he's got a better view from the side. Or maybe it's because he's at least a little better informed than Ishida-kun and the rest of the Chosen, so he hasn't dropped to the end of the food chain.

Except the reason for not telling them is: 'what can they do about it? Better they don't know.'


	8. 1-08

**live once you become**  
1.08

That's the answer for a child, he thinks. Better they don't know if they can't do anything about it because it'll just be an extra burden on them. But adults have a lot of that. Knowledge that's useless. Things they can't do anything about. Burdens and regrets they can't shed except by shield or sword. Steel oneself against the harsh reality or just cut it loose.

Or just rot away inside. And Oikawa Yukio, as they wrote his pretty much redundant file, was a case of that. An adult who drowned under the weight until he came out a misshapen mess at the end of it – but isn't that also an unfair assessment, when there'd been an outside puppet-master at play?


	9. 1-09

**live once you become**  
1.09

He's a puppet now, but better made and more important – except that's not true, is it? He watches the Chosen but they're the most important ones, the ones who've saved the world before and they expect will save it again. Even if they are at the bottom of the information food chain, he's the watcher and they're the important tools or weapons they can't let come to harm.

And isn't that an adult's role as well: to play the unseen manipulator, the chess-master who will sacrifice the necessary pieces as opposed to the naïve child who tries to save them all?

And isn't it actually possible to win a game of chess without taking a piece at all?

* * *

 **A/N** : to win a game of chess without either side losing a piece is possible but pretty rare. The world's fastest checkmate (called the fool's mate) is an example. It's called a fool's mate because white basically builds an open road leading straight to its king so most of black's work is done for it. Yes, remi is still a chess nerd.


	10. 1-10

**live once you become**  
1.10

Is hoping for the best possible future for all of them naïve? Isn't that their _job_? Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst? Isn't that what they're doing? Watching over the children while doing damage control. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

But the clock's ticking and he's got no idea how bad it can get – or how bad it's going to get, either. He hears about Maki taking Yagami-chan to the hospital and that's odd because Maki's not stationed at Odaiba Junior High so how did she get there?

And then a timer appears on every computer in the DDA sprouts a timer, and no-one'd told him it was the prelude to the end of the world.


	11. 2-01

**live once you become  
** 2.01

The world doesn't end.

Well, the digital world does. Sort of. Rather, it reboots itself. All the adventures those children had had were gone…and those adventures they didn't follow as well. After all, there were more Chosen than the eight that stood at the centre. Chosen all over the world, with different accomplishments and with partners who can obtain different levels of digivolution… But all those partners are now gone, reborn and without a memory, a trace of the life they'd shared together before.

They want to go back to the digital world: these eight. They don't go to him. They go to Maki and she doesn't go to him either. The children only drop by long enough to submit a vacation notice and he doesn't bother telling them to keep up with their schoolwork when they're away, because he knows full well where they're going and why.

What he doesn't know is why Maki's helping out.


	12. 2-02

**live once you become  
** 2.02

Maki had said the children will have to grow up eventually, but now she's helping them stay the innocent naïve children they are? It makes no sense to him but it doesn't seem to bother the children. They accept her help as it is and don't even look closely at it.

They don't wonder where Maki has gotten a D3 and a D-terminal from. They don't even see the objects for what they are.

They simply hold hands and enter Bifrost's road when it appears. They don't look back. They don't look down.

Only he sees Maki go after them.


	13. 2-03

**live once you become  
** 2.03

Maki goes and the road begins to vanish. He watches, swallows, and then goes as well. Maki doesn't look back either. Maki doesn't see him. Maki's not there when he wakes up again, either. And the children are nowhere to be seen either.

The world is strange. He's never been here before because he's not a Chosen. He's just a guy who works for a government agency and that agency chases digimon. And he's shot viruses at digimon. He's shot guns at digimon. He's driven children into warzones because of their digimon, and the digimon they fight. But for some reason, he hasn't imagined what their home looks like at all. But it's so detailed. Flora of their own making. A sky of different colours and yet the echo of earth is in everything.


	14. 2-04

**live once you become  
** 2.04

He wanders around a bit before he hears the sound of a fight, and he makes his way towards it. He doesn't have much in the way of weaponry but he can hold his own against a Child level and hightail it out of there if it's anything stronger. Nothing should be though, with the reboot. Every digimon in the world should be a baby2, or a baby1 at the most.

But baby digimon aren't as large as the flickers he can see through the trees.

He doesn't make it though. Something else distracts him. Someone, rather. Maki…and Ichijouji-kun?


	15. 2-05

**live once you become  
** 2.05

What is Ichijouji-kun doing there? He was missing. They'd settled that when they'd seen him (or thought they'd seen him) during the festival in Odaiba. Their monitors reported his status unchanged, and the biorhythms didn't match. It was someone else. Someone digital, from what they could gather. But aside from that, they still had no idea…

And yet here he is. Or the being who wore Ichijouji-kun's image like a mask the last time. And Maki is there as well.

Daigo draws his gun and moves. Maki is still between them, so he needs a clearer shot.

Until she smiles.


	16. 2-06

**live once you become  
** 2.06

Why is Maki smiling? Isn't she worried in the least?

No, she isn't. After the smile, the boy changes: grows into a man in a robe with long brown hair. He only vaguely recognises that face. On a photo on Maki's desk.

So it's slightly less of a surprise when Maki steps forward and embraces the other shortly, before letting go.

They trade words all the while. He can hear nothing. And now there's no danger. It's a friend of Maki's… but in the Digital World? Why is that?

Who else can get into the Digital World after the reboot?


	17. 2-07

**live once you become  
** 2.07

She calls him Gennai. He recognises the name. The sort of guardian angel who's come to the rescue of the Chosen more than once…and who's also made their job that much difficult by wiping the system of all the digital world data after the Vamdemon incident.

And yet here Maki is, greeting him like he's an old friend instead. An old friend wearing the guise of one of the children who's been missing for months now – and none of that makes any sense at all.

Which leaves three options. Either it really is escaping him and everything's as innocent as it doesn't appear, or Maki's in trouble, or she's got a hidden agenda.

He doesn't want to believe the last one's possible.


	18. 2-08

**live once you become  
** 2.08

The children go one way. Maki and Gennai go the other. Daigo hovers a moment, before chasing after Maki. He's stopped in the process though. Stopped because he's stepped on something's tail and glowing yellow eyes are staring at him.

Meicoomon.

Except she looks at him and then lowers her head. 'Meiko?' she asks.

Mutely, Daigo shakes her head.

'I see.' And Meicoomon sounds so sad.

It's not fair. It's not Meicoomon's voice the virus was planted inside of her.

Not that he knows who planted it. Not that he knows the role of those involved…or, even, who was involved. He hadn't even known Meicoomon was the source of the virus until Maki had told him.

 _Maki!_

Maki and Gennai were long gone, and so were the other children.


	19. 2-09

**live once you become  
** 2.09

Meicoomon is surprisingly pleasant company, or maybe he's thinking about the Meicoomon who was the source of the virus, the Meicoomon that was wild with the urge to destroy. But all the virus-infected digimon were like that. It's not Meicoomon's fault. Not this Meicoomon, anyway.

Unless he's just being naïve and Meicoomon is just playing innocent, unless the real Meicoomon is evil to the core – like Vamdemon, like Apocalymon… But from what he knows of Apocalymon, is he really evil as well? Or is he just the consequence of those left behind as the world evolves? The dregs of society the rest of them forget about until they swarm up like black sludge.


	20. 2-10

**live once you become  
** 2.10

Meicoomon leads Daigo, because Daigo has no idea where he's going. He knows where he wants to go though. To the castle that would one day become Vamdemon, where the door back to the human world lies. Time has rewound itself, so it should still be there. And from there, he can get back to the human world.

He toys with searching the world for Maki, or those children, but the likelihood of finding them is slim. And he's entirely unprepared. The weapons they've engineered aren't here. And the records of this time are foggy in his mind. He needs to read them again. And maybe put together a team. Or find Maki's work records: something that'll tell him what she's doing here.

And he can take Meicoomon to Meiko too. And that's enough to make her want to help.


	21. 2-11

**live once you become**  
2.11

The journey to the castle is easy enough, but they run into trouble when they get there. Two kinds of trouble. Maki and Gennai, from who Meiko is quick to hide and Daigo follows before his brain quite catches up… and Piemon swooping down with his army.

Without Meiko, Meicoomon can't digivolve and Daigo's no Chosen Child himself. He's got no partner. And no weapons on him. No defence. They can only hope to hide and sneak through the gate if they can manage it.

But Maki doesn't have anything either, and yet she's calmly watching, hidden like them. Watching Gennai dance with Piemon. Watching him grab something and flee. Watching Piemon try and shoot him down from the sky. Watching something fall.


	22. 2-12

**live once you become**  
2.12

It's wrong. The order's all wrong. He realises what this is now, but Gennai should have fled with the eggs before they hatched on File Island. And yet the children had found their partners and now the eggs were being carried to their birthing place?

Or was this the echo of a memory, like how Homeostasis had told the tale to the children before.

The images fade. A memory then. Maki emerges from her hiding place and she is alone. She touches one thing, and then another. Meicoomon slinks away into the shadows and Daigo looks between the two before following Meicoomon.

Meicoomon is his responsibility right now. After she's delivered to Meiko, he can concentrate on Maki again.


	23. 2-13

**live once you become**  
2.13

They go through the gate without any trouble, and emerge back in the human world. From there it's an easy matter to find Mochizuki Meiko's address and knock on her apartment door.

She opens it and stares at the pair of them, but then Meicoomon is crying out her name and jumping into her arms with more life than Daigo's seen in her, and it's the perfect fairytale reunion.

Daigo leaves them too it. Unless Meicoomon still carries the virus, they are no longer his concern. And maybe they never were his concern, with how much he hasn't been told, how much he doesn't know.

Now it's time to find out a few of those things.


	24. 3-01

**live once you become**  
3.01

The agency isn't surprised he shows up to work. Rather, they're surprised at the week's absence without leave and he sheepishly makes up a tale about a family emergency and they buy it (until they'll check the records down the track and realise he's lied, because government agencies are pedantic like that). But he returns to work as though nothing's changed, inquires about Maki (and that's well within his rights since she's his boss) and find out she's taken leave and won't be back for a while yet.

And then he pokes around in places that are less his right.


	25. 3-02

**live once you become**  
3.02

Maki has covered her tracks reasonably well, but it won't hold up to close scrutiny and it doesn't when he scrutinises it. But there's nothing that explains her reasoning, her intentions, nothing that explains _why_. Yes, they've created weapons against digimon but it's because digimon are falling through the rift and they're infected, they're dangerous.

That's no reason to rip the two worlds apart completely. That's no reason to make the digimon forget humans and then destroy them in that ignorance.

And it's an enormous thing. With what should be an enormous impact and yet they are a separate world. The damage to their digital systems can be mitigated. They've mitigated it once already, getting back the information that had been snatched away once and deleted.

And then there's something smaller and – when he realises it – far more brutal.


	26. 3-03

**live once you become**  
3.03

He realises it surprisingly late. Maki has also sent the children to the Digital World. And has gone herself.

It's a suicide bombing that's going to kill twelve children and herself.

And he still can't understand why. And suddenly he's forgotten all about the digimon who will be wiped out with it and maybe that's understandable because he's a human so of course his priority is to other humans –

But there's something welling up inside of him: something yellow and black and dizzying and he's on the ground with his feet propped up and the first aider crouching beside him before he's able to register anything outside of a blur again.


	27. 3-04

**live once you become**  
3.04

He gets a sick day and it doesn't wind up being very effective because he can't stop thinking about Maki and the children and the digital world and, because he can't, the dizziness and blotting out of his vision doesn't stay away.

It takes him a bit to realise that the two of them share more than a coincidental relationship and maybe that's fair too because how is he supposed to put things together when his head feels like _that_?

And then trying to figure out _why_ around that is even more nauseating, and he can't help but throw up food and drink and, when all that runs out, just plain bile.


	28. 3-05

**live once you become**  
3.05

It's like a puzzle now. Work out what the strange being causing this feeling is and what they want and it'll magically go away. Or he hopes it works like that anyway because his brain is mush after a day of it. He doesn't even remember to call in and there's no Maki to knock on his door and shove painkillers at him.

He downed a few before. They probably got vomited up but now he's lazily splayed on the couch and in easy reach of the bin. And his nose has stopped working for the time being.

Maybe that's the only reason he can transition into sleep, and so dream.


	29. 3-06

**live once you become**  
3.06

He falls asleep eventually, and he dreams. There's still black and yellow but there's nothing else at least and the nausea only strikes full force when he's back in consciousness again. In the interim there's static and, in the midst of that, what sounds like a voice.

For some reason, it sounds like Maki.

 _You've grown up._

 _Haven't you grown up yet?_

No. He realises it later. It's not the same. Just similar like words without context appear to be. They're opposites. Almost exact opposites.

He says almost because he doesn't understand her reasons, or who the mystery voice is.


	30. 3-07

**live once you become**  
3.07

It comes again, the next night when he's feeling better and thinking the week off his doctor has given him might not be necessary after all. Especially since he's worried the world will have exploded by the time he's back and it'll be too late to do anything except collect the ashes that remain – and the sad bit is he isn't even being melodramatic about it all. The world will quite literally explode, even if it's on a separate plane most don't know about.

But the sickness has lifted a bit and the voice comes the next night and it's clearer: sadder, but more tolerable.

 _You've grown up._

The same words. Familiar somehow, but he can't put a face nor name to them.

He can put an answer though. _Maki says I haven't._


	31. 3-08

**live once you become**  
3.08

The voice disagrees with Maki, apparently, because it's suddenly almost quiet and sullen, like how a petulant child just glares quietly and an adult wants to crumble –

And that's why he's a high school teacher and not an elementary school one. Faces like that are far too easy to cave to. Even if he can't see this one. Even if he's only imagining it, feeling it somehow without his eyes, or his memory…

As though his mind knows that voice so well, even if he can't recall…

 _You've grown up. You've forgotten me._

And he can't say he hasn't anymore.


	32. 3-09

**live once you become**  
3.09

He's supposed to know. He does know, somewhere buried in his mind. He doesn't remember though and what's the point of that knowledge when he can't call it up on demand? Is it like this for the Digimon, he wonders. The Digimon who've been reborn in the Digital World and who stare at their partners who remember them but they don't recall at all…

And, with that thought, the loose fragments of these repeating scene click into place. And maybe it's a stretch. But now that the idea's occurred to him, he can't leave it.

 _You're my partner._

 _I forgot._


	33. 3-10

**live once you become**  
3.10

The voice agrees. Mentions times he still doesn't recall and now that he knows, he wonders. Why doesn't he recall? There must be a reason, and maybe that's why he works here, because he's had a connection to the digimon that goes deeper than he knows.

Because it had been weird, hadn't it, that a teacher of languages and appreciator of arts was scouted by the government for something like this. He's not like Maki who can lie to the kids with a straight face and to him as well for the greater good of _something_ , or those tech guys who make weapons that can handle digimon. He's too soft, they say. He's here anyway, for a reason.

Maybe this is that reason.


	34. 3-11

**live once you become**  
3.11

They don't have time for too many stories. The voice is nameless still, and too far away. He needs to get back to the digital world. He knows that, and the voice begs him too, now that they have some common ground to communicate on.

And Meicoomon and Mochizuki Meiko need to come as well.

They are easy to convince, now that they are reunited once more. They are even easier to convince once he gives them smatterings of his own tale. Made even easier is the change in the world: a change he hadn't noticed because of his sick days but now he sees it all.

The two words are irrevocably linked, after all. And now, with memories tucked away, they're being ripped apart.


	35. 3-12

**live once you become**  
3.12

They need to fix this, somehow. They're a team of three and hopefully that will turn into four when he finds his partner but they can't count on that. They can probably count on the other Chosen, though. If they get to them before the people they fight against.

He realises far too quickly that Maki will be one of those people. She set them up, after all. She slowed them down. And she allowed the missing Chosen to be almost entirely wiped from their minds.

Ichijouji Ken deserves the greatest apology, for they allowed the others to think of him as the villain he hadn't been.

But now they can know. And if they pool their memories and resources, they can remember: the black spaces of the world's memory.

They can restore the balance between the worlds.


	36. 4-01

**live once you become**  
4.01

They go into the Digital World and there their focus is split. He needs to find his partner. He also needs to find Maki. And the other children.

And then there was Alphamon, too. Who'd attacked the children and they still had no idea why.

So many factors playing a role in things. But really, the only ones they could really look for were the Chosen. He didn't know what his partner looked like and Alphamon appeared and disappeared at will.

So the made their inquiries and followed the trail of breadcrumbs, hoping it would lead to the Chosen Children.


	37. 4-02

**live once you become**  
4.02

They find the Chosen. Trouble has found them multiple times by then but they've persevered, more or less. Their digimon don't recall but they've rekindled their old bonds again and it's beautiful. The lost faces of those in-training digimon are gone. They're a team heading out to save the world again.

Except they're engaging Alphamon when Daigo and Meiko catch up. Eight against one and all mega and still losing and just what is Alphamon? And why does he fight them so hard?

When Meicoomon joins the battle, Alphamon flees.

The Chosen stare at the two of them in the aftermath.

'Nishijima-sensai?' Taichi says, finally. 'What are you doing here?'

'Looking for you,' Daigo replies. 'We have a lot to talk about.'

Meiko hangs back and says nothing, even when Mimi makes a beeline to her.


	38. 4-03

**live once you become**  
4.03

Daigo explains the situation. He's still missing things, like Alphamon's motives, and what happened in the time he was a Chosen himself to forget his partner, and Maki's motives as well. He explains and they think and synthesise the information and try to plug the holes –

And they take too long, or maybe they'd already taken too long before they'd sat down to talk.

Maki appears, and the man who can change his form with him. And Maki frowns at him as she sees him there.

He frowns as well.

For a moment, they only have eyes for each other.

If only the context could have been so romantic.


	39. 4-04

**live once you become**  
4.04

'Still being the kid,' Maki sighs finally. 'All of you.'

And Daigo gets it then. 'Why?' he asks. 'Do you equate growing up with abandoning the Digital World?'

'Because we must,' she says calmly. 'The Digital World is a dream that gives little to reality. It gave us an adventure while we were children. It gave us friends we thought would last forever – but then they stayed here and we had years without them until they come begging for our help again. And bring all this trouble. The Digital World only calls when they're in trouble.'

There is truth in that. There's no easy way to and from, and it's a gate that's almost impossible to hack. They know this because they've tried it.

And three people have succeeded in doing it.


	40. 4-05

**live once you become**  
4.05

Maki explains the crux of the matter. Her crux.

The digital world needs humans. But humans don't need the digital world.

And maybe she's right. After all, it's the whole reason he's not just a quiet teacher in a school where his students don't go missing (and he with them). But there's a part of his life he doesn't even remember and that – that sucks, quite frankly. He wants to remember it all, and if something exciting happened in his youth, then he wants that most of all.

As for friends, they drift apart no matter what world it is. Look at him and Maki, after all. But their memories remain, tinted with rose-coloured lenses and really, that's what memory and growing up is all about. Not forgetting entirely. Not colouring over their lenses until there's only black.

'I think…' Daigo says slowly, staring at Maki with a sudden, new, realisation. 'I'm not the one who didn't grow up.'


	41. 4-06

**live once you become**  
4.06

There is anger on Maki's face, suddenly. Maki who is never angry, never panicked – but that's only because she's been playing with a bigger deck and a bigger hand than him.

Talk about unfair, but now the tables are turning. He has information she doesn't, even if it's little and hardly of any use except to pierce puzzle pieces together.

But he continues anyway. 'I had a partner digimon. But I forgot. And you know what the first thing he says to me is? I've grown up.'

She snorts at that, but it's weak. He's breaking her down.

Maybe all he'd ever needed to do was stand up and say he'd grown.


	42. 4-07

**live once you become**  
4.07

She stares at him hard – glares at him really – and then her face crumbles.

She knows. She knew all along and Daigo can't even be angry with her. He sighs instead. 'I'm still a softie at heart, aren't I?'

'You are,' Maki agrees quietly. 'We never could agree when it came to that – but then your memories and that time of our youth were gone, and you'd follow me because subconsciously you knew…'

He knew she remembered something he didn't, understood something he didn't.

And she still hasn't said. 'Tell me.'

'We can't.' The shapeshifter jumps in. 'Only Alphamon can.'


	43. 4-08

**live once you become**  
4.08

Alphamon. The digimon responsible for the loss of four Chosen and the one who chased Meicoomon into the human world. Alphamon who appears time and again to fight the Chosen and their partner digimon – but why? And whatever does that have to do with him?

'Why Alphamon?' he asks. 'We're trying to stop him, not ask him questions.'

'Alphamon lost faith in the humans,' Gennai explains. 'Humans who once came to save the world from destruction – and did exactly that.'

'Sounds like biting the hand that feeds you,' muttered Yamato, not sounding very impressed.

'It wasn't Alphamon who did that,' Maki says, voice flat. 'It was Meicoomon.'


	44. 4-09

**live once you become**  
4.09

Meicoomon makes a noise, and Meiko wraps her arms around her. Maki's eyes are hard as she stares down at the pair. 'The digimon are old,' she explains. 'They've died and been reborn and some have gone through multiple human partners. Alphamon once had a human partner. Meicoomon didn't, but she wanted one. She wanted one so very badly after watching us, but no-one ever came for her.'

Meiko's grip tightens. So does Daigo's, on his knees. Why Meicoomon carries the virus… started so long ago?

It does. Meicoomon's desire to have a human partner turned her into the villain. Just like Oikawa Yukio's desire to reach the digital world turned him into one in 1999.

How unfair, that some of them are granted it on a silver platter and others long for it and never are…

The digital world can be a warm place… But also very cold.


	45. 4-10

**live once you become**  
4.10

'Alphamon blames the humans,' Maki finishes. 'Because humans came to the Digital World, we temped other digimon – digimon like Meicoomon who didn't go on to have a partner after all. And we were angry too. Angry that they used us to save themselves and now they blame us.'

'Of course,' says Gennai,' we didn't all agree. Maki and I were leaning towards agreeing to a divide. Daigo, on the other hand, despised the idea, and his digimon challenged Alphamon. And he lost.'

'Jesmon,' says Koushiro suddenly.

The name sends a stab of pain through Daigo's head, and he clutches it.


	46. 5-01

**live once you become**  
5.01

Alphamon and Jesmon. The two of them were locked in a conflict that had gone on for over twenty human years because they disagreed about the role of humans in their world's troubles. And Maki, she agrees with Alphamon, in a way. He and the current Chosen, they agree with Jesmon, apparently. And Gennai? What role does he play in it all?

'You helped us,' says Taichi and he sounds torn between confused and accusing. 'You helped us, and now you're helping get rid of us.'

'I was after Meicoomon,' Gennai replies. 'I won't deny I've done things that may seem unforgivable in your eyes, however I did it for the good of the world. And I don't believe the Digital World is better without humans.'

'You do believe the human world is better without digimon,' Hikari finishes.


	47. 5-02

**live once you become**  
5.02

It makes sense, because Gennai is the one who erased the data back in 1999 and sent them on a merry chase in 2002. Gennai who wants to believe in humans but he can't believe in all of them. Just the ones he sees with his own eyes.

'But you said you aren't human or digimon.' Koushiro again. 'What are you, then? And which side are you on?'

'There are many factors in an equilibrium,' Gennai replied, and says nothing more.

Daigo wonders what he's still missing. There's something. Something that hasn't come into the equation.

And then it clicks. 'Why Ichijouji-kun?' he asks.

And the Chosen only look politely confused.

 _Bingo._


	48. 5-03

**live once you become**  
5.03

'Ichijouji-kun?' Mimi repeats.

They don't remember. They'd been reminded for a time – a very small window of time – but they've forgotten again. Memories that hadn't anything to hold them there. Will he forget the voice in his dreams if he stops thinking about it for a while as well?

To slip in and out of memory like that… He wonders how hollowed out he'll feel once they settle into a norm once more.

He doesn't like the thought.

The others are clutching their digimon partners, and Meicoomon her human. They don't like the thought either.

None of them like it.


	49. 5-04

**live once you become**  
5.04

Gennai looks guilty like that. Daigo thinks he should. Maki is just as blank-faced as she'd been after Daigo called her out.

'It was an experiment,' Gennai confesses, finally. 'We wanted to make sure it was the same thing. But it wasn't. Not really.'

'My head hurts,' Daigo says, after a moment, and Jyou in particular looks at him in alarm before he adds: 'not right now. But when I heard my partner's voice, it hurt. And… just before…'

Gennai nods. 'It didn't hurt you children, seeing Ichijouji-kun's face, did it?'

They all shake their heads.

Why? What was different?


	50. 5-05

**live once you become**  
5.05

It's Alphamon and Jesmon. Fighting again. Appearing before them and suddenly they're all swept up in the battle. Even Meicoomon.

Except Maki and him, who don't have digimon partners, who can only watch.

Except Jesmon, who extracts himself from the fight as soon as he can and is suddenly standing in front of him – no, kneeling in front of him.

And then Alphamon is coming closer, and the others are stopping him.

Have they realised? Or are they simply stopping the enemy from progressing and protecting the enemy of their enemy.

Maybe only Maki and Gennai know.

Maybe he's wrong.


	51. 5-06

**live once you become**  
5.06

When Jesmon speaks, he knows he's not wrong. 'Daigo…'

'Jesmon,' Daigo echoes. His partner… right? He can't say he saw that one coming.

And it doesn't hurt anymore. Why not? Gennai is gripping Maki's arm and Maki is looking away.

'Maki?' he asks.

'You had to go and do that,' she snaps. She's hurt – and he had no idea why. He has no idea where her partner is, either. Or Gennai.

Hold on…

'Alphamon?' he asks. He can't quite believe it but the idea's sprouted in his mind. 'Alphamon's your partner?'

'And Jesmon is yours.'

They've been fighting all along.


	52. 5-07

**live once you become**  
5.07

The two extreme views. Their opposition had been decided long ago and that's not fair at all. He's been strung along. They've all been strung along.

'Maki,' he repeats. 'Why are you doing this?'

'Because we lose more than we gain,' Maki replied, still not looking at him, 'after we've been in contact with the Digital World. And it's the same for them. So we started again. And now… the loose ends.'

He thinks she's cold, to call them all loose ends: those who don't want to let go of their digimon partners, of their memories.

But he still doesn't understand why, why their views are so different when they've seen the same things, why it all went wrong.


	53. 5-08

**live once you become**  
5.08

'We made our decisions,' Gennai says quietly, watching Alphamon struggle against the rest. 'I lost my partner, and I chose to protect the Digital World. Alphamon and Maki went their separate ways, and she decided to protect the human world. Alphamon too protects the Digital World, in his own way, but he believes the humans bring greater strife while I believe we can still be of help despite that. And Daigo…'

'Daigo was a dreamer,' Maki finishes. 'Wanting a world where everyone could live together, but it never happened. There was fighting instead. Endless fighting. Too many died. Humans and digimon and he wiped it all from his mind.'

Her voice is too dry to spark a memory and perhaps it's on purpose. She's trying to protect him. She doesn't want him to recall.

Honestly, after hearing that, he doesn't want to recall either.


	54. 5-09

**live once you become**  
5.09

'Nishijima-sensei isn't wrong,' Hikari pipes up and the adults all stare at her. 'We believe in the possibility that humans and digimon can live together too.' And the others nod about her.

'You haven't seen the result,' Maki snaps.

'Then lets show them,' says Gennai, before anyone can argue anymore and they stare at him. 'The hall of records can do it,' he adds.

'It… can.' Maki is suddenly uncertain. And staring at Daigo.

He doesn't want to recall it all, but he has to. He owes Jesmon, and Maki and Gennai and whoever else from his youth he's forgotten. And he owes the children as well. 'Let's go.'


	55. 5-10

**live once you become**  
5.10

So they go to the hall of records, and it's a plain place with a Taomon standing guard but it lets them pass without preamble. And Daigo wonders how he and Meicoomon didn't come here before. The Chosen wonder how they'd never seen this place as well. But Gennai leads the way like he knows it like the palm of his hand.

And then it all falls away and they're somewhere else instead. A mansion on top of a mountain. And the children gasp as though they recognise it.

He doesn't. But he can guess. 'So…,' he says. 'This is where it all began.


	56. 5-11

**live once you become**  
5.11

It's a long tale, but maybe that's the flashes of memory making it longer than it really is. The mansion on the mountain is where five children and their partners arrive and where they return after their victory, and there are other digimon as well. Celebrating. Trading stories. Bragging about how strong they've become.

And other digimon are discontent. Some want to be stronger too. Some want to travel, have adventures, escape their simple lives. And others still feel it's cheating, to reach all the way to Ultimate on the back of a human.

And maybe it is cheating, compared to those that take a thousand years to reach their final form. But that's not important when they watch the past.

They can see the seeds of chaos already planted there.


	57. 5-12

**live once you become**  
5.12

Meicoomon is actually the more innocent one, or one of them. She only wants a partner. But there's a massacre and she survives it and she's left a wanderer whose dream has turned into her reason to live. And then come the other digimon. Not Alphamon nor Jesmon but a third figure shrouded in shadow and they don't recognise it, not at all. But Meicoomon glows back before returning to normal –

And then it's in the human world and meets Meiko, and they understand. This is the birth of the virus.

There's been another enemy behind the scenes all along.


	58. 5-13

**live once you become**  
5.13

'So now we know,' Taichi says heavily. Maki and Gennai are looking at each other. Daigo has his head between his knees. Alphamon is probably on his way, since Jesmon has come with them. But he's not here now. They have time, even if it's not a lot of it.

Maki is frowning at Meicoomon and Meiko. Perhaps she's thinking of the source of the virus. And regretting her own investigation had stopped at the Child digimon.

And Gennai is frowning at the records as well, wondering why he'd never watched them to the end instead of playing through this charade.

'We could've been fighting a common enemy. Instead, we've been fighting each other.'

'It's not that simple,' Maki protests, but there's less fight in her. 'The extra angle of conflict we bring by just being here is still –'

'It only becomes impossible if you give up,' Hikari says quietly. 'I still believe in my dream.'


	59. 6-00

**live once you become**  
6.00

Now there are other questions. How to show Alphamon this old enemy that's lurked in the shadows for over twenty years without detection. And how to convince them to reconcile once that enemy is defeated. How to return the Chosen that were lost – though perhaps that goes hand in hand with convincing Alphamon because that was his doing, and the way they slip like fish out of water from their memories is his doing as well.

At least now they have information a plan, instead of stumbling blindly. They're not children anymore, after all, who can trust to hope and nothing else. They need something more substantial: their pasts, even if they can only see through the lenses of their own minds and clouded lenses at that.

Some of them forgot. Some of them wanted to forget. Others wanted to remember. But they'd all missed the something that slithered past them, like a snake. Children with tunnel vision.

Now they're on a snake hunt. Adults with lenses from the past they can use to watch the world.

And there's the children inside them that can still dream, as well.

Even Maki, who chooses to believe again, in Hikari's words.

Hopefully… even Alphamon too.


End file.
